


is love a feeling (or a state of being)

by DisasterLesbean



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Post-Canon, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-16 18:52:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19324048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisasterLesbean/pseuds/DisasterLesbean
Summary: Loving someone and being in love with someone is separated by a thin line, easily mistaken for one another.





	is love a feeling (or a state of being)

The fire crackles around their laughter. McGonagall’s eyes shine with barely contained mirth. “I could hardly believe it when Seamus handed me the wand.”

“Did you really expect anything different?” Hermione’s smiling too. The nostalgia is infectious. She never thought she’d look back on the day Seamus lost them a large amount of house points and smile. 

“I’ve always wondered…” McGonagall trails off reconsidering. 

“What is it Professor?” McGonagall cuts Hermione a look she is more than familiar with. She receives that look every time she falls back on old titles. It’s been years since McGonagall and her started spending time with one another, it has been years since McGonagall had been her professor. During their first meeting after the war, McGonagall insisted she lose the title. Hermione does not oblige her.. Hermione’s continued using it since. Not always, just when she thinks McGonagall isn’t expecting it.

The brazen pride that graces Hermione during these moments ensures the use of the title. It’s been years but McGonagall always reacts the same way. The rebuke in her eyes and the twitch of her lips that threatens to expand into a smile. She obviously knows Hermione does it on purpose. How could she not? 

It floods her with warmth to see McGonagall indulge her in this way. McGonagall could put a stop to it, cease to give Hermione the pleasure of her surprised reaction. She doesn’t; she hasn’t. Hermione wonders if McGonagall knows how much she looks forward to that reaction, that simple gesture. 

She probably does; she is Minerva McGonagall after all.

“Why did he try to trick the transfiguration professor of all people?” She sounds flabbergasted. It’s like she can’t wrap her mind around the simple idiocy of teenagers.

“I told him to,” Hermione confesses. She blushes at McGonagall’s laugh. It’s a low dry sound that tightens Hermione’s throat. She swallows hard and continues, “I knew he was planning on planting it for test scores.”

“You were just a concerned citizen?” McGonagall’s muggle turn of phrase is an attempt to cover her amusement. McGonagall knows that Hermione hadn’t set Seamus up out of some sense of morality.

“You know why I did it.” She only just stops herself from rolling her eyes at McGonagall who in fact did know better. Hermione had only stopped Seamus due to pride. Hard-earned pride over her academic achievements but still pride. 

It wouldn’t do for her to compete against Seamus of all people.

She hears an owl scraping at the window and sets her firewhisky aside to let it in. It’s a ministry owl;, she takes the letter and feeds the large owl. 

“Is everything alright?” McGonagall’s watching her reactions carefully. Hermione wonders how much an animagus spills into a person. Perhaps the person spills into the animagus. She hadn’t known McGonagall before she’d learned to use her animagus and didn’t have a point of reference. She doesn’t know if McGonagall always portrayed feline characteristics and the animagus only amplified it or whether she’d become more feline after discovering her animagus. What comes first, the chicken or the egg?

That’s what she looks like as she gauges Hermione’s reaction: positively feline. She looks like a cat watching the mouse cross the street. Whether she’ll chase her or let her pass depends upon Hermione’s answer. Luckily for Hermione, even if McGonagall chooses to chase her, it won’t end in her death.

“Not really.” Hermione crumbles the paper in her hands and collapses back into her seat across from McGonagall. She feels a headache already forming and takes a healthy swig of her drink. McGonagall’s eyebrow raises in a language of its own. _Explain_ , it demands. “They’ve decided to veto my proposition.”

“Surely not?”

“They’ll continue on with the plan to excavate the island.” Hermione stands and starts pacing. McGonagall sits back, knowing Hermione needs to let it out.“The island houses colonies in the thousands of fairies. They’re sentencing hundreds of thousands to death.”

“That’s not how they see it.”

“That’s the issue! I’ve been working in the ministry for years. I’ve been trying to change their minds for years. Should I just face the fact they can’t change? That they won’t? They choose ignorance.” Hermione takes a deep breath before powering on. “They denied my other proposition as well.” This conversation is trickier. She knows McGonagall isn’t as sympathetic towards vampires as she is.

“Oh?” It’s a safe and diplomatic reply. She doesn’t want to antagonize Hermione but they both know McGonagall’s hesitation over her support for vampires. 

Despite McGonagall’s attempt at peace, Hermione feels herself puff up and prepare for an argument. McGonagall sets her drink aside, readying herself. “Why shouldn’t we help support the houses? We treat vampires like second class citizens. Sure the ministry doesn’t allow us to murder them on sight but we do nothing to ensure their protection. If they didn’t form the houses to protect their own they’d be extinct by now. “ McGonagall’s eyes twinkle with mirth at the sight of her state and it makes Hermione scowl. 

She isn’t some kid scratching at the ministry’s door. She’s a grown adult goddamn knocking it down. She’s one of the key figures in Voldemort’s downfall. She’s one of the most talented officials in the Department of Magical Creatures. She knows it’s only a matter of time before she becomes the head of the department. She isn’t foolish for trying to protect those who lack protection.

“I’m not trying to patronize you, Hermione. I don’t doubt your feelings or findings. I did read your article.” Hermione wants to flush at hearing that, knowing McGonagall read something she doesn’t necessarily agree with just because Hermione wrote it. “I just...hesitate to agree with the level of protection you want to give them.”

“Why? Do you believe they don’t deserve the right to live as we do? What about Remus?” 

McGonagall’s mouth thins for the first time in a long time. She hasn’t seen that look of displeasure directed at her in years. Since Hogwarts, before the war. “I’d ask that you refrain from using dead friends for an argument, dear.” Guilt smashes against Hermione. She feels dirty. She doesn’t understand how McGonagall could be friends with Remus and deny similar creatures their rights.

“I’m sorry.” Even if she does not understand, she owes McGonagall more than underhanded tactics. 

McGonagall untenses but still looks thoughtful. “It’s not that I wish to dictate their rights. It’s that I hesitate at making it easier for them to kill.”

Hermione’s anger finds its footing once more. “They’re not all killers.”

“Nor are all werewolves. I was quite fond of Mr. Lupin but that doesn’t erase the fact most werewolves sided with Voldemort. Moreover, most werewolves are more like Fenrir Greyback than Remus Lupin. They’re uniquely skilled at killing and seemingly predisposed towards it.”

“That disregards the causing factors. Werewolves sided with Voldemort because his regime offered them better rights than ours. Why shouldn’t magical creatures rage against a system rigged against them? Most creatures have even less rights than vampires. The ministry is about to slaughter hundreds of thousands fairies and they have the public’s support for it. Why? Because the island is of magical properties? To benefit ourselves we’ll walk on the corpses of the oppressed. Isn’t that what we fought against Voldemort for? Apparently not. The people cheer for another genocide when we’re still wearing the scars of the last.”

The hurt has faded from McGonagall’s expression when Hermione looks back. She’s smiling a secret smile, her thumb rubbing circles on her index as if she’s restraining herself. She doesn’t look at Hermione like she’s patronizing her but rather like she’s amazed. Not quite amazed, it’s an expression too often worn to be amazed. People aren’t often amazed by others. It’s a seldom used expression and even more seldom truly felt. She can’t possibly amaze McGonagall enough to cause that reaction. It must be something similar but different. 

“I have to admit, you would make the best head for your department.” Pride fills Hermione at McGonagall’s words. “I agree that the island is not only misjustice but a gross action of cruelty.”

“You can’t agree about vampires?”

“I’m not trying to patronize you or call you young for your beliefs Hermione. I’ve lived longer, seen more. I know the nature of people. They will choose violence and cruelty to benefit themselves. The fact you still strive to look for the best in people amazes me. I wish you could always look for the best.”

It irritates Hermione that McGonagall thinks she doesn’t know about the nature of people. Hermione’s entire childhood was devoted to another’s war. Her mind and body were used as a weapon by her own side and neither escaped unscathed. She stops herself from biting out another cutting reply.

It isn’t anything that McGonagall doesn’t know. McGonagall knows better than most what Hermione went through. She’s seen Hermione at her worst. She’s one of the few people Hermione lets herself be vulnerable near. McGonagall’s one of the few to see past the walls meant to preserve her mind from slipping further into the clutching darkness. 

Hermione may live amongst a generation of dead children but McGonagall lives in a graveyard. Her friends, family, even her students are gone while she still lives. She’s living proof to the cruelty of war. 

“I’ll always look for the best.” She still refuses to back down. She’s still Hermione Granger even if McGonagall is one of the last of the titans.

“I look forward to it.” McGonagall takes her drink back, sensing the end of their conflict. It isn’t the first time they’ve clashed and it won’t be the last. They’re both of their own minds and refuse to change for the others’ ease. Instead, they agree to disagree.

“You’ll look forward to when I prove vampires deserve better too.” Hermione can’t help the jab and McGonagall pours her another glass of firewhisky. She doesn’t rise to the bait but Hermione can hear her mutter something displeased under her breath.

She takes the floo home rather than apparating. She isn’t necessarily drunk but doesn’t wish to test her sobriety. She’d rather keep all limbs attached.

She walks from the lobby to Ron and hers’ flat. She shuts the door with a soft click. Running her hand down the door frame. She wanders through her apartment, hanging her heavy outer robe. She expects Ron is asleep and in bed but he’s standing in the dark looking out the window. 

“I thought we agreed to leave the brooding to Harry?”

“He’s shit at it. Thought I’d give it a go.”

“Are you doing any better?” He turns at her question, half his face glowing from the moon. He wears a downcast expression and Hermione feels herself returning it. 

“I like to think so. Maybe I picked it up from Percy.”

“Certainly not Ginny.”

“Terrible brooder that one.” He comes closer and leans against their table. “We have to talk ‘Mione.”

She isn’t surprised. “I know.”

“We aren’t working.” It’s different hearing it out loud rather than just thinking about it. It’s sadder too. It drags her heart down from its heights moments ago.

“I know.” She grabs Ron’s forearm and squeezes it. “I wish we did.” 

He lets out a rueful laugh. “So did I.” He turns his hand and takes hers. They fit together in a way only two people who’ve known each other for most of their lives do. “I’ve loved you for so long. I think the issue is that I mistook that love for something it isn't. It made sense. We’re best friends, have been for so long. After the war it just made sense. Not all attraction is meant to be acted on.”

Hermione doesn’t laugh because she doesn’t have it in her. It’s Ron’s way of dealing and she doesn’t begrudge him for it, especially not at the stricken look when the first tear falls down her face. “Loving you should be easy.”

“It is. You love me everyday. I’ve never doubted that. Being in love? That’s different. We haven’t been in love with each other for a long time.” He rubs at the wet track on her face. “If we ever were.”

It hurts, this whole conversation hurts. It’s not the shards of a broken heart but the deep bruising of a love that could have been. The fact is that she has never been in love with him and they both know it. He might have been at one point but she couldn’t say she had. 

She’s never felt the anticipation with him like she had when Fleur would send her a promising look nor the nerves of falling in love. There’s never been romantic passion between them, at least not on her end. She’d felt more passion in the last few hours practically arguing with McGonagall than she’d felt throughout her whole relationship with Ron. 

Ron seemingly sees something in her expression because he tugs her into a warm hug. He doesn’t hold her tight because that’s not the kind of hug that it is, it’s not their relationship to be so desperate or passionate. They aren’t clinging onto their relationship; they’re letting it go. “It’s okay.” His voice is tighter than usual but he isn’t crying. Not like she is. She doesn’t sob for the same reason he doesn’t hold her tight. Still, she can’t help the slow trail of tears. The end of something that could have been great.

He’s warm and smells the same as he always does. It’s familiar; it makes her feel safe. “Are we going to be okay?”

At this he does tighten his hold, if even just a little. “Of course we are. I will always be in your life.” He’s more attached to their friendship than their relationship. She doesn’t hold it against him considering she is too. She could lose him in her home but losing him in her life would destroy her. “Besides, mum would send a hit squad after me if you didn’t come around anymore.”

“Will she be upset?”

“At first. She won’t be angry but she’ll probably be sad. Don’t think that means you’re any less welcome.” She settles into him, unwilling to let him go quite yet. Despite their amicable parting, she knows it’ll be awkward for a while. She likely won’t be able to hug him for a while. “There’s something else.” He sounds hesitant and it makes her hesitate. “I’ve met someone.”

“Our relationship is barely in the ground and you’re already meeting people.”

“It’s not like we died ‘Mione.” His laugh vibrates against her. She smiles before she pulls back to playfully scowl at him. “Don’t even give me that look. How’s the good Professor?” She blushes at the insinuation in his words. “That’s what I thought.” He looks pleased with himself and she narrows her eyes.

“I’ll have you know I’ve been nothing but faithful.”

“I’ve no doubt you’re as loyal as a puff. I am not accusing you of anything and I hope you wouldn’t accuse me either.” At her confirmation, he continues. “We can’t help our feelings, ‘Mione. I know you’ve hardly done anything inappropriate but I do know you.”

“If I could control my feelings, Ron, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” The sad look returns and the joking environment fades once more. He looks touched; she doesn’t regret her words.

“Same.” She snorts. So much for the deep conversation.

“Romantic as always.”

“I’ll have you know I’m a very romantic guy.”

“I’m sure.” She hums and looks around the apartment, not sure of what comes next.

“I’ll be staying the night with Harry. I packed my stuff already.” It’s so final; Hermione feels her tears well up once more. “Don’t cry. This is a good thing.” It is. Hermione knows it is. It’s good for the both of them to no longer be in a relationship with no future. That doesn’t stop it from being sad.

“I’m going to miss you.”

“Haven’t you been paying attention? You’re not losing me. We’re just getting the courage to take the next step in our lives. Now you have no excuse with Minerva and I have none with Billie.” She recognizes the name as a new auror Ron has talked about a few times. 

He’s a far cry from the boy who ran away from them all those years ago. Now, here, he’s running towards something. 

After he leaves, she thinks maybe she is too.

Work becomes her life. Trying to stop the ministry from committing genocide against the fairies becomes a full-time ordeal. She’s even had to cancel on McGonagall. McGonagall understands and sends her support. She unfortunately sets the vampire issues aside for the fairies. Trying to work both would benefit neither. The problem with vampires is systematic and underlying and therefore not as immediate, as much as it kills her to set it aside for the moment. 

“Miss Granger!” A voice calls out in the lobby. She doesn’t need to see him to know it’s Mr. Rosier. He’s a pure-blood and unfortunately his family supported Voldemort during both wars. The Rosiers’ reputation is in tatters and their finances are even worse. It’s unknown whether he himself supported Voldemort or not but he pays for his family’s choices nonetheless. 

He’s been trying to meet with her for weeks to review his family’s status. No matter how many times she tells him she’s not in the right department to help, he persists. Perhaps he believes getting help from the muggleborn of the golden trio will make the public more favorable. 

“I’m sorry Mr. Rosier I’m too busy at the moment to talk.” She pushes through the crowds of people towards the elevator. 

“Miss Granger please.” Part of her wants to help him. He’s always kind to her, has never spoken harshly or out of turn. He respects her enough to assume she can help him when she can’t. The angry mutters about him start up and cease her thoughts in their path. The crowd notices him and the derision spreads like wildfire. Hate fuels most mobs and this one is pointed at a single target. Mr. Rosier needs to get moving. 

A Slytherin through and through, he notices and gives her a nod of acknowledgment. The pleading look stays on his face but he has enough self-preservation to leave before the crowd turns violent. She sighs but continues with her day. She has had enough run-ins with Mr. Rosier that it is unfortunately just another part of any day. 

It’s lunch, or it would be if she took the time to stop working, when McGonagall’s owl lands on her desk. She has no clue how it got in. She blinks dumbly at it for a few moments before looking around. Walden, a short stout man who’s been working in the Department of Magical Creatures for more years than she’s lived, gives her a wry look before leaving.

_Come by for dinner._

It’s short and succinct. Hermione leans back in her chair, her back protesting at the hunching she’s allowed herself to fall into. It may do her some good to take a break before coming back at it. She knows she’s just coming up with an excuse to see McGonagall, but she waves it away. She has been responsible and skipped out on her for work a few times. Moreover, she knows McGonagall has been missing her. She finds it odd that McGonagall would miss her as much as Hermione misses her but she knows it to be true.

She sends off her agreement and sets to getting as much work done before then that she can manage. 

“I know you’re busy with work and I’ve allowed you to cancel three times but I doubt you’ve been eating.” 

Considering the last thing she’d eaten was a piece of toast on her way out of her apartment, she doesn’t argue. “Allowed?”

“I doubt anyone can make you do anything you don’t wish to do. Which is why I didn’t protest.” McGonagall knowing exactly how much Hermione wants to be with her didn’t make her blush. She didn’t feel nervous at McGonagall’s knowing gaze. 

When she wrote McGonagall and told her about breaking up with Ron, she hadn’t been surprised. It’s like she knew Ron and Hermione wouldn’t last. She was considerate and offered her comfort but didn’t write about it again. Hermione didn’t either. Hermione is aware for possibly the first time that for all that Hermione feels for McGonagall, it is possible McGonagall feels the same. 

It’s a live tension that exists between them. She wants to ask, to confess, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t because it’s McGonagall’s to say. McGonagall’s feelings, her truth. Hermione has been painting her own feelings on their tapestry. Every conversation, every time she’s reached out, every soft spoken compliment and every raw glimpse of who Hermione really is. 

“You could have.” If McGonagall asks, she’d always be there. She thinks it’s the same for McGonagall. Every time Hermione calls, McGonagall answers. It’s as if they speak a language that only the other understands. Even when Hermione doesn’t call, somehow McGonagall knows she needs her. 

“I know. You needed to work.” She didn’t expect McGonagall to acknowledge _them_. Whatever _them_ there is. The depth of their relationship. She wonders when it became this.

Loving someone and being in love with someone is separated by a thin line, easily mistaken for one another. She mistook it with Ron and McGonagall in opposite ways. She isn’t mistaking it now. Not as the woman herself is alluding to their relationship. Not as Hermione butters a slice of bread in Minerva McGonagall’s home. 

She’s amazed by the worn but regal state of McGonagall’s home. It’s a well-loved home, lived-in for much of McGonagall’s life. It has more magical artifacts and books than Hermione could ever dream of collecting. She knows for a fact that McGonagall keeps all of Hermione’s articles, everything she’s ever published. Even some things she hasn’t published.

She wonders when McGonagall will speak plainly about them. Hermione knows she will. Their relationship is on a course with one destination. How they get there is the variable neither of them can control. 

After it’s all done, Minerva wishes she had chosen that night.

“How’s your day been?” Hermione asks her. They have been talking about Hermione’s life recently and she’s intent to change that. She refuses to let her breakup and ordeal at work overtake their time together.

“I had to stop a first year from blowing up the divination class.” Hermione admits she expected something more tame. Just goes to show her what McGonagall has to go through on a daily basis. 

“Divination isn’t even a first- year class.”

“I’m well aware.”

“Why?”

“I haven’t a clue. The student swears it was an accident.”

“Do you believe them?”

“Hardly.” Hermione smiles at McGonagall’s weary tone. Despite her put- upon attitude, Hermione knows she wouldn’t give up Hogwarts for anything. She often wonders if she loves the job or the students more. She assumes both are necessary for a good headmaster. 

After losing so many people, maybe it offers her solace to help usher in young witches and wizards. She hopes it gives McGonagall some comfort even as they blow her school apart in acts of childhood stupidity.

“How’s Pomfrey?”

“You always go through the same list of questions darling.”

“Because they matter.”

“My day matters to you?”

“More than anything.” Hermione knows she said too much when McGonagall’s words falter. She looks pleased but thrown. 

“Yes, well.” McGonagall taps her armrest uneasily, looking for something to say. Hermione decides to spare her.

“Are you still favoring your lions?”

“I would never unfairly score one house over another.” McGonagall’s faux-scandalized words are quickly broken up by a chuckle. 

“I’m sure I don’t believe a word of that.” There’s likely not a soul in the Wizarding world who doesn’t know about McGonagall’s unfortunate bias. 

“I’ll have you know Hufflepuffs are in the lead.”

“It would be a shame if Gryffindors somehow took first by the end.”

“Don’t mistake me for Dumbledore.”

McGonagall has a point although Hermione could never mistake the two.

Hermione doesn’t see McGonagall again for the next few days as she once again buckles down on work. She does see Ginny whose smile is entirely too knowing for the time of day. 

She almost asks if she brought breakfast when she catches the hour:, it’s passed dinner. 

“Imagine my surprise when Minerva mailed me to bring you food.” Ginny unlike Harry and Ron, doesn’t hold back punches.

“I wonder why she would say that.” 

“Uh huh. Eat before your stomach gives you away.” Hermione does as told because it's not a bad idea. “I know I teased you about being a teacher’s pet but I didn’t think you’d go so far.” It’s said between bites, luckily not during like Ron would have. She still throws a paper ball at Ginny who carelessly swats it out of the air. 

“It’s not like that.”

“I know.” Ginny, for her part, at least looks like she does understand. “You love her?”

Her heart thuds at the intensity of words like love. She does love her. She knows she not only loves her but is in love with her. She isn’t afraid of mistaking her emotions as she did with Ron. It’s too real, too tangible. “Yes.”

“I’m happy.” Ginny gives her an honest smile and Hermione feels herself relax. She reaches towards her quill and writes a quick note. After attaching it to her owl, she sends it off towards McGonagall. “What’s that for?”

“She was worrying about whether or not you brought food.” Hermione rolls her eyes but Ginny doesn’t. She sets her food aside and leans forward, eyes widening in surprise. 

“How do you know that?”

“I don’t know. Just makes sense.” She can’t help but shuffle at Ginny’s penetrating look.

“You were certain. It wasn’t knowing her; it was feeling her.” 

“What do you mean?”

“What’s she feeling right now?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Hermione’s irritation gets the better of her when she huffs out the question. 

“You know about soulmates?” 

“That’s a muggle concept isn’t it? Not a good one at that.”

“What’s the muggle concept?” 

“Meet someone and immediately know they’re your other half.” 

Ginny scowls. “That’s terrible.”

“Like I said.” 

“Ours is a little different. In the magical world, bonds between beings exist and these bonds are affected by magic. You and Harry are like brother and sister right?”

“Yes.”

“To an extent, that’s what your magical bond is. There’s no biological change but the bond would be recognized as familial.” 

“Okay.”

“That’s how soulmate bonds are formed. They’re not instant like your muggle bonds. They take time to form. When they do, they’re unbreakable. Moreover, they’re magical. You’re not just guessing her feelings;, you’re feeling them. That’s an obvious sign of a soulmate bond.”

“How do I not know this? Shouldn’t it be all anyone talks about? Shouldn’t McGonagall have told me?” Her brain is rapid firing.

“That’s the thing.” She looks away from Hermione awkwardly. “It’s sort of a pure-blood thing.”

That boggles her mind even more. She doesn’t feel like working all the sudden. “McGonagall isn’t a pure-blood.” 

“I don’t know what to tell you. I just know what I know.” Ginny shrugs apologetically and Hermione offers her a strained smile. 

“Thank you. I didn’t even know such a thing existed let alone I was experiencing it. I’ll figure it out.” She starts putting her work away and quickly finishes her food. Ginny, who’s known her for years, lets her run off to find any book about soulmates she can find.

Perhaps that’s why she’s so preoccupied. Maybe if she hadn’t skipped meals until Ginny came by, she would have been more aware. There’s so many maybes, so many choices that led to this one. Not all hers.

She’s walking down the street, stack of books in hand, when fingers latch around her mouth and tug her into a body. The tell tale spin of apparation overtakes her and she hopes the idiot doesn’t splinch them. She feels a feeling ghost over her consciousness. It's a disembodied feeling, one not quite her own. She recognizes it as McGonagall’s. She’s worried for Hermione. 

As soon as their feet land, she wastes no time in throwing an elbow back into her assailant’s ribs. She pulls away and reaches for her wand only to find it taken from her. She adapts and moves to throw a punch. Mr. Rosier’s nose crunches beneath it and she stumbles back.

“What?”

“I am sorry Miss Granger. I assure you it’s nothing personal.” 

“What do you want?” She looks around and finds herself in the atrium to a massive house. Mansion, more accurately. It’s rundown and burned from spells but still standing with regal grace. The yard she finds herself surrounded by is dying and yellowed. The walls are crumbling and burned by similar spells, the wrought iron gate blasted open.

“Minerva McGonagall has something of interest to me.” He still sounds the same. He doesn’t change into an arrogant or slimy man. He still sounds kind and it eats at Hermione. She wanted to help him; most of her believed him good despite the rest of his family. Now she’s stranded without a wand with only the vaguest hope he still proves to be a good man. 

She feels McGonagall’s airy worry turn to thick heady fear.

“You could have asked her for it.” She doesn’t ask why he took her. It’s no secret that she spends time with McGonagall. The Wizarding world knows about it thanks to tasteless articles. She didn’t think anyone would know of their complex relationship yet, but if he’s been trying to get her alone for weeks, he’s not just anyone. 

“She wouldn’t have given it to me. It’s worth enough to establish any family, or in my case, reestablish.”

“What now?”

“Leverage.” He twists her wand around and shoots a spell into the air. Her wand seems to give him a zap; she’s glad he chose to use it until she realizes why. 

The pop comes from the gate and she sees her heart breaking on the other side. 

He tugs her back towards him, wand to her throat. She freezes at the familiar hold, the old memory. McGonagall starts towards them, fury lining her face. She feels it too. Liquid rage burning her up. McGonagall stops in her tracks. Rather she is stopped in her tracks. She sees McGonagall mouth something to her but can’t hear anything. The anger burns brighter.

It must be warding of some kind.

“Don’t.” She feels an odd detachment. 

“This isn’t personal. I need to reestablish the Rosier family. If I were you, I’d be more concerned with the fact she didn’t bring it. I made myself very clear. The book for your life.”

“What book?”

“Albus Dumbledore’s personal journal.” She has no doubt McGonagall has it. 

“Minerva, I will give you one more opportunity to bring me the journal. I will kill her if you don't.”

She feels the hesitation before the decision. Dumbledore’s journal isn’t just one secret but pages of them. It’s an item that possesses power and knowledge. Who knows what he knew? What he recorded? It could be devastating in the wrong hands. She understands McGonagall’s hesitation and the decision wrenches Hermione’s heart. She’s being used as a pawn and she refuses to cooperate. 

McGonagall tosses the journal which sails through the wall she can’t pass.

Hermione fights back. She feels McGonagall with her every move. Her emotions are like a physical presence complimenting every attack and every defense.

She takes his wand and tosses a spell. It misses purposely, refusing to follow her will. He tosses a hex her way and it too misses. She feels McGonagall’s worry between every breath. Their hits get closer with every cast. She isn’t tossing school hexes and neither is he. They’re both fighting for something worth dying for. 

McGonagall has lost so much throughout her life; she refuses to be another. She refuses to let him take Dumbledore’s journal, possibly one of McGonagall’s last reminders of an old friend.

She’s unrelenting. 

She feels McGonagall’s fear tip into raw instinctual desperation. He stops moving for a moment, eyes widening and wand motionless. She presses harder. 

The words find her lips without a roadmap. They know their path. It’s not a trail that has been used lately but it was once a well known path. Once, the weeds had been pushed back by flashing green and a need to survive. Now, the weeds brush against her mind. 

It misses. Green flashes past him and he freezes. Shock stalls him. Shock that she would use it, that she’d be able to conjure the will. McGonagall isn’t shocked. McGonagall who knows more about her than most, has seen her at her most raw, has seen the green that haunts her nightmares. McGonagall is still screaming in her mind, pounding at their bond. She doesn’t have time to spare. 

She throws a slicing curse and finally, it lands. His body explodes in red ribbons. She’s splattered with the red paint of the past. She lowers his wand, eyes pounding. 

“You’ll be the end of Rosier.” He gasps out the wet bloodied words. His eyes even now aren’t full of hate. Just a tired resignation. The knowledge he failed his family sits on his chest as he chokes out his last breath. She turns back towards McGonagall. McGonagall looks wrecked, her hands still pressed against whatever invisible wall Hermione can’t see. She’s mouthing something but Hermione can’t hear her. 

She starts towards her, McGonagall’s fear a constant. She keeps walking before her feet get caught against each other. They feel odd, numb, like she doesn’t quite have control over them. She looks down and notices for the first time a hex had landed. It burned into her hip, iridescent purple and black. Her breath catches and her stomach flips. 

She attempts to stand and falls back down. She tries to ignore McGonagall’s panic; she has enough of her own. It’s draining quick. She wants to collapse. She wants to lay down instead of fighting gravity to hold herself up. She can’t.

She can’t because if she collapses she won't get back up. If McGonagall can’t get in, she doubts anyone can. Her corpse will be left here. 

She stands on shaky legs and starts back towards the gate. It’s not too far; she just has to make it. 

It’s harder than anything she’s ever had to do but she makes it. She falls and McGonagall catches her.

“Hermione.” Her hands fret, wandering to the wound and away. “Aurors are on their way along with a healer.”

Hermione doesn’t voice her doubts.

“I’m glad you’re here McGonagall.”

“Will you ever call me Minerva?” Hermione can hear the _especially considering our bond_. 

Hermione isn’t sure how to tell her that she can’t. She hasn’t been able to. She still wakes up covered in sweat from nightmares. It’s been years but she still isn’t okay. She’ll never really be okay again. She’s buried friends, classmates. She’s been afraid to lose people. It’s drilled into her.

It was why she first kept up some semblance of a barrier between them. She told herself it was to protect herself from losing McGonagall. After a while she lost those barriers. Those walls she erected in the name of protecting her heart from loss were soothed and worn away. 

It’s that she heard Ron and Harry cry over her. She heard their nightmares. She saw the violent rage in Harry’s eyes that were so out of place. She kept McGonagall because Minerva meant it was real. Minerva meant broken hearts. 

Hermione knew she was going to die young when she first caught a basilisk’s eye. Hermione knew she would leave those around her hurt when she first left the room Fleur had tended to her in. She’s destined for death and she didn’t want to afflict Minerva. Minerva, who’s already lost so much.

She curses Rosier that. Minerva has lost her everyone and survived. Now, she’ll lose her soulmate. Hermione tried so hard to protect her people from loss; and in the end, she’s doomed her own soulmate. 

In the end, she doesn’t need to tell Minerva. It’s obvious that she can feel it in the thrumming bridge between them. As invisible as the wall around the Rosier estate but even stronger. 

“Minerva.” It’s surrender. Complete and unguarded surrender. If she dies, she dies with Minerva’s name rolling off her tongue. If she lives, she’s torn the last wall down.

She thought she was held back by her pride and only now, with Minerva fading from her vision, does she realize she’d been strengthened by her pride all along. 

Grey. A long reaching grey blocks her sense. She’d hoped for light. Something other than nothing. 

Then even the grey fades.

It leaves her in an absolute blankness. A blankness so empty it defies words. Should she try to describe the nothingness that faces her, the page would find itself soaked in ink with no image.

She thinks she dies. 

The utter nothingness takes her and she wishes she had a form to fight back with. 

Against all hope, it refuses her. It spits her back out like bone and gristle. 

The grey returns and she isn’t as ungrateful as she was before. She welcomes the grey. Anything but the maddening nothing.

She forgets it all. She forgets the greys and nothings because the thing that matters most brushes against her consciousness.

Annoyance, is the first thing she becomes aware of again. It’s a constant annoyance. The next thing she becomes aware of is Minerva’s mutters, mocking and definitely pointed at a poor essay writer. She’s grading. So why is Hermione here? 

She doesn’t stress over it. She just lets Minerva’s Scottish insults mesmerize her. It’s soothing and she feels her rapid heart rate slow. It smells like Minerva wherever they are. 

“You’re awake.” Hermione lets her eyes open, although they resist her, and she turns towards Minerva. She looks relieved, tired but relieved. “How do you feel?”

Hermione still isn’t really sure, everything is blurry and she’s confused. She reaches towards Minerva who sets her quill down and takes Hermione hands. Love surges from Minerva to Hermione and back again. A loop created between the two.

“Better.”

Minerva lets out a long held breath. “Good.”

“Where are we?”

“Home.” Hermione nods but feels herself drifting off. The call of sleep too great even with Minerva by her side. “Rest, I’ll be here when you wake up.” 

She dreams of yellow grass and wooden floors.

She’s glad Minerva isn’t there when she wakes up shaking and covered in sweat. It gives Hermione time to pull herself together. She isn’t sure what part of Minerva’s home she’s in. She’s been visiting it for years but this place is unrecognizable to her.

The everpresent smell of pine surrounds her. The sheets, pillows, the entire room. Minerva always smell like pine, but her house rarely smells this strongly. 

She’s sleeping in Minerva’s room, in her bed. Hermione allows herself a tired smile at the realization, as slow as it was to come. She isn’t smiling when she tries to get out of bed.

Her hips protest the movement and she finds herself regretting waking up. The skin there feels as if it tears at the creases. Burned and torn, bruised and battered. She isn’t sure what she got hit with but finds herself eager to learn its counter. She never wants to be hit with it again.

She carefully lifts her loose shirt to finds bandages covering the wound. It’s oddly muggle. The magical world does use bandages but rarely. Usually, a counter-curse or potion will do. She probably shouldn’t lift the bandage if Minerva and whoever treated her deemed it necessary. She still does, but she remembers she shouldn’t.

It’s still iridescent purple. It looks alive underneath her skin. A moving formation buzzing beneath the skin. Except it isn’t really buzzing. A buzzing would be harmless. It’s crawling, burrowing its way beneath her flesh. It burns and scorches its landscape, intent to remain. 

If they haven’t removed it yet, she isn’t sure it can be removed. It may fade but she doesn’t know anything about it. 

She moves to leave the bed again, more mindful of the wound. She’s successful.

There’s a haphazard stack of books and medical supplies. She doesn’t mess with the unlabeled potions. She picks up a book and starts reading.

“I should have known.” Hermione opens her bleary eyes to Minerva’s hovering form.

“What’d you expect?”

“Pomfrey did tell me you wouldn’t cooperate once you were awake.” 

“Pomfrey thinks everyone is a terrible patient. I’ve heard the stories; the real monster is her.”

“You might be right.” Minerva is taking the book from her hands before she can argue. Hermione moves to stand and has to reposition, the first attempt too painful. She sees the grimace on Minerva’s face and her focus shifts. Not yet, not when she’s barely able to move. Soon though. She’d ask before it’s too late. 

She won’t let another Rosier, or another obstacle between them.

She slips back into bed, angry that she’s tired again. Angry because one curse has laid her out so thoroughly. She sits up too quick when a thought threatens to overwhelm her.

“Careful!” Minerva’s impassioned worry might have caused her to pay attention any other time.

“The island?” Fear is trickling through her system like the cold of basilisk stone. 

“In your absence, they reconvened. A man named Walden brought your notes to the case, they proved invaluable. They’ve decided to keep the island intact.”

Hermione feels so overwhelming happy, a happiness dancing in unison with Minerva’s. “There’s hope.” Because even though she argued for the best of people to Minerva, the worst has clogged her mind. 

Minerva brushes her thumb across Hermione’s cheek. “There’s always hope.” Hermione’s gaze is locked onto Minerva’s upturned lips. Minerva presses a kiss onto Hermione’s forehead, just above her eyebrow. “Rest, so you can prove me wrong about vampires.” If that isn’t a reason to let Minerva pull away without capturing her lips, she doesn’t know what is.

She dreams of pale skin and soft lips. 

She’s spent years loving but confused. Years trying to love Ron how she’d already loved another. She thought she knew what it was to long. To subside herself in Minerva’s idle touches. A graze across her shoulder...a brushing of fingers while trading cups...a rare hug. Now that she’s felt Minerva’s lips pressed to her skin her longing has become consuming.

The days blur into a pleasurable pattern. Minerva is often there when she wakes but not always. Although Hermione remains unable to work, Minerva still has a school to run. Sometimes she wakes to Minerva’s grumbles and astray hair and other times she wakes to soft purrs and a puff of fur.

Minerva is more tactile, more openly affectionate. Hermione soaks it up. Eager to make up for lost time, eager and afraid of what could have happened. However tactile she has become, Minerva doesn’t kiss her again while she stays at her home.

Hermione goes back to her own place once the pain is manageable and she can once again go about her daily life. The moving scar remains.

It lays on her skin like the rest of her scars. They pave their way across her body. They tell their own story, each of them. She longs to have Minerva’s cool lips pressed against them, soothing the ever present burn. The pain doesn’t debilitate her but it proves uncomfortable, a slight ache at all times. It feels like a sunburn that if she isn’t careful, will shred and bleed.

She goes back to work and finds a party in her honor. She’s touched her coworkers care enough. She spends more time with people she often disregards than she has in her entire career. She calls attention to Walden, who was key in the protection of the island, but he waves it off. Gives all the glory to her. 

No matter how he regards it, she’ll remember. She’ll remember the man who knew how important it is to save the island and how Hermione’s research could accomplish it. 

She does go back to fighting for vampires as well as dozens of others. 

“Nearly killed and right back at it. You’re making the rest of us look bad,” Ron jokingly says one night. She would take it personally if he didn’t look so proud. That’s the same night she meets Billie. A wisecrack who matches perfectly with Ron. Their easy manner doesn’t rub her the wrong way like Lavender had. Instead, they seem confident in their relationship with Ron. 

She spends nearly every night with Minerva.

They have dinner and often talk into the night. Hermione knows it doesn’t help either of their work schedules but it feels right. Spending time with her soothes a part of Hermione’s soul and she can feel it is the same for Minerva. 

This day, she feels Minerva’s anger all day. It’s a ripe heavy anger, the kind that clouds a person and ruins their day. Yet, when Hermione comes around for dinner, it abates.

She breaks their stalemate.

“How long do you think we’ve been soulmates?” Hermione could have been more subtle. She could have beaten around the bush and given Minerva time to realize the conversation they are going to have. That’s not who she is and she’s been letting Minerva have time. That time just happens to be up.

“I think around the time you discovered your animagus.” Hermione wasn’t sure exactly when it happened. Their love was like quicksand: she hadn’t realized she was sinking until her fingers grasped at grains of sand. Minerva it seems, has been more aware of their relationship.

“That long?”

“That long.” Minerva’s hand takes her own. “I thought I was mistaken at first but I couldn’t mistake your joy. When you succeeded the first time, I was blasted with such a wave of joy and pride. It was all I could feel.” 

“I didn’t know soulmates exist.”

“Most don’t. Honestly, we shouldn’t.”

Hermione feels like her whole body freezes. “Shouldn’t?”

“We shouldn’t know. It should be impossible for those who aren’t pure-bloods.” Her body unfreezes.

“Is this what you want?” A smaller part, a part Hermione is embarrassed about, wants to know if she’s what Minerva wants. The girl excluded from her peers, the woman at odds with coworkers, the daughter her parents don’t even know anymore. The person inexplicably always other, always outside. The muggleborn of the trio and the witch daughter of dentists. 

“Want? Need? Desire? Certainly.”

Longing bleeds into satisfaction. Minerva’s lips taste of everything Gryffindor promised. Adventure of the first kiss, bravery for the first step, but most of all, glory.


End file.
